The Blacksmith Who Invented the Bicycle
No Tour de France without us Scots.
Would Chris Hoy’s six Olympic golds have been possible without a quirky blacksmith from Dumfriesshire?
Born in a village called Kier in 1812, Kirkpatrick Macmillan worked all his days as an in-demand blacksmith in his hometown. An aptitude for hardware manufacture sparked his invention of the first rear-wheel driven bicycle, propelling cycling and the limits of human achievement to new heights.
Yet Kirkpatrick’s design is steeped in controversy.
Was he an ingenious inventor or a mere copycat? Did subsequent trailblazers pinch Macmillan’s design? And who was the mysterious ‘gentleman’ that mowed down a child on Glasgow’s streets astride his newfangled bicycle?
Historians are unsure exactly who to credit with the invention of the forerunner to pedal-driven bicycles, yet luckily they can agree on one thing — he was a Scot!
People power
The coming of pedal-driven bicycles transformed life in Scotland, particularly for working-class men and women. However, it took a while for cycling to catch on outside trendy London circles.
The draisine was first on the scene. Made of wood, brass bushings, and iron-shod wheels, the draisine weighed a hefty 22kg. It became a game of balance for young daredevils who had money and time going spare.
Unimpressed, the public nicknamed the strange contraption a ‘dandy horse’ after the fancy Dans who rode them. Not even Romantic poet John Keats had a good word to say about the draisine calling it “the nothing” of the day.
In 1899 the Gallovidian, a Galloway magazine published in Dalbeattie, stated that MacMillan wearied of the ‘dandy horse’ and "devised a plan to get rid of it."
It took a year’s tinkering in the smithy for Macmillan to achieve a breakthrough. In 1839, he was ready to road test his invention.
From “Daft Pate” to devil
At 27 kg Macmillan’s velocipede was hardly lightweight. He’d essentially adapted the draisine by attaching a treadle to the rear wheel. In theory, this meant the cyclist wouldn’t need to hit the ground with their feet to move forward.
A crowd of Keir locals gathered to watch with curiosity as their local blacksmith heaved the strange contraption from his smithy onto the road. Neighbours called him “Daft Pate” due to his eccentric inventions — a vote of no confidence that didn’t seem to deter Macmillan.
Gathering more from amusement than encouragement, they witnessed Macmillan mount his gadget for the first time, “striking the ground with his feet.” Would his invention work without the need to touch the ground?
It took some effort but once the cranks of the rear-driven wheel got going Macmillan was off! He zoomed down Keir village’s twisty, rustic roads to the delight of the dubious villagers, becoming the first human to ride a bicycle without their feet touching the ground.
Now there was no stopping the “Daft Pate”. After a visit to his sister’s, he whizzed up to Carronbridge and south to Edinburgh. In under an hour, he could reach Dumfries, usually with a crowd of bystanders cheering him on.
29 years old and flushed with success, Macmillan made the trip to Glasgow. The blacksmith was surrounded by an excited crowd as he zoomed through the Gorbals. Unfortunately, as he manoeuvred to avoid hitting the crowd of spectators, he knocked over a young girl. Macmillan was jailed but released the next day with a fine of five shillings.
In truth, newspapers at the time only mention “a gentleman” from Dumfries. This has led to quibbling over whether the man was Macmillan. The question is, how many men from Dumfries had access to such a splendid velocipede?
Either way, the incident earned Macmillan a new nickname — “The Devil on Wheels”.
Inventor or copycat?
Years later, Macmillan’s relative James Johnston set out “to prove that to my native country of Dumfries belongs the honour of being the birthplace of the invention of the bicycle”.
While the public embraced Macmillan as a humble hero, sceptics refuted his claim. When Johnston presented “Macmillan’s” invention at the Stanley Cycle Show in London, some argued that it was a copycat of Thomas McCall’s earlier velocipedes.
Later engineers point to the fact that tricycles and quadricycles seem to have been the only human-powered vehicles in Scotland at that time. Furthermore, the cyclist who knocked over the child was described as a “gentleman”. Is it likely that a straight-laced Victorian paper would call a blacksmith a gentleman?
Macmillan himself never pedalled his claim to fame. He inherited his father’s smithy and made a comfortable living plying his trade as a blacksmith. He never patented his design, so others had carte blanche to make money from his original design.
Gavin Dalzell, for example, produced a bicycle in 1845 that’s credited as the oldest rear-wheel-driven bicycle. Its design is strikingly similar to Macmillan’s.
Regardless of whether Macmillan was the true inventor of the first rear-wheel-driven bicycle, the bright idea to adapt a treadle system to the back wheel led to the sleek, lightweight modern bicycles we recognise today.
The further invention of pneumatic tyres by another Scot, John Boyd Dunlop, made the bicycle even more practical for women. Mostly used by upper-class women to travel to university, working-class women saw the advantages of owning a bicycle.
In 1905 Fassiefern Bain of North Uist petitioned the Congested Districts Boards to help the island nurse better manage her essential work in an isolated community.
Unfortunately, Fassiefern’s request was denied. Yet that hasn’t deterred modern female cyclists, with a record number of women dusting off their velocipedes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — and perhaps thanks to Scotland hosting last year’s UCI World Championships.
Perhaps it’s too good to be true but Kirkpatrick Macmillan’s niece is said to be the first woman to ride a bicycle after an illicit spin on her uncle’s invention!
The early twentieth century saw a bicycle boom as subsequent designs became more affordable for ordinary people. Once the plaything of foppish Victorian hipsters, the pedal-cycle gave the rural working class and women a practical and safe means of transport. Today, cycling has experienced a renaissance as a means of green travel and an enjoyable way to keep fit — all thanks (perhaps) to Dumfrieshire’s eccentric blacksmith.
Kirkpatrick Macmillan died of tuberculosis at Courthill, where he invented his bicycle, in 1878 aged 65. He survived his wife and two of his six children. His ardent supporter James Johnstone never wavered in his belief that Macmillan invented the bicycle stating:
"The word 'bicycle' means, of course, properly speaking, the first two-wheeler propelled and steered with the feet off the ground, and he was undoubtedly the first man to solve this problem."
A plaque at Macmilan’s smiddy in Courthill celebrates the unconventional “Devil on Wheels” with a short extract from a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson — worth a detour to visit if you’re cycling in the area.
Presumably, the locals are well-used to the sight of cyclists by now, and you’ll leave town without a nefarious nickname.
Written by Kate Macritchie
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Interested in inventive Scots? You might enjoy our articles on the creator of the thermos flask and the University of Dundee’s latest step forward in finding a cure for cancer.